Chapter Three
Blue River
The sharp banging on his bedroom door might as well have split River’s skull open. Cringing, he pulled his pillow over his head and curled tighter into a ball under the blankets. His mouth tasted like something died in it. It might have been his self-respect.
Unfortunately, the knocking did not abate, even when he groaned pitifully.
“River! I swear to God, you better not be dead in there—”
Amanda, his manager, cut herself off. Then she sighed loud enough to be heard through the door.
River cursed himself for not soundproofing his bedroom when he had the chance.
“Okay, changed my mind. I’m coming in. You’d better not be naked,” she amended.
“And if you are, then you better hope you’re dead, I don’t need to see that again. ”
Which was just rude, River thought. He was very attractive. Lots of people would have paid money to see him naked. Hell, lots of people paid good money to see him with his clothes on.
He could’ve sworn the room got louder just from Amanda breathing in it. “Jesus Christ,” she muttered. “What the fuck happened in here?”
It was a sad hallmark of River’s character that he couldn’t let that question go unremarked upon. He flung the covers back from his face. “You see, Amanda, when a man and another man are attracted to each other—”
But then his eyes, screaming from the agony of daylight, registered what Amanda had seen, and… well, okay. Jesus Christ, what the fuck happened indeed.
He squeezed his eyelids shut and counted to five in the hopes that when he opened them again his hangover would be gone and his bedroom back to its usual state of half disaster. No dice—the throbbing did not abate, and his bedroom still resembled the wreckage left behind after a hurricane.
River liked things. His therapist said it was a relic of his deprived childhood.
Amanda said it was because he’d been a magpie in another life.
He liked Amanda’s version better. In any case, he kept his room full of little treasures—jewelry and keepsakes, designer clothes, the occasional LP from his favorite artists, the ones who’d shaped his style growing up.
He liked to see everything at once. He wasn’t precious about things getting damaged; he couldn’t seem to unlearn the easy come, easy go lessons of his childhood.
Those two facts added up to his bedroom being a general state of disaster.
But he was usually neater than this.
Rather than being thrown haphazardly over the purple velvet plush armchair in the corner by his desk, his clothes were strewn over the floor to the point of obscuring the pattern of his favorite Persian rug.
His dresser drawers were open, items spilling out as though they’d been flung there by a particularly enthusiastic stripper.
His jewelry case was open too, though not much remained in it.
A handful of beads from necklaces that hadn’t survived the mad scramble for valuables dotted the carpet.
River’s bed partner from the night before was conspicuously absent.
Fuck.
He was standing and processing the scene when Amanda put her hand on his upper arm.
He sighed. “Well. You told me so.”
She hated it when he did that, but it was true. He could only blame one person for the chaos and disappointment he let into his life. Amanda only ever tried to save him from himself. “River….” She sighed. “I don’t suppose you got his name.”
“His real name?” He doubted it.
“His face is probably on the security cameras. We could file a police report.”
She’d do it too, even if it made him look pathetic, even if it got the wrong kind of attention. “No,” River said after a moment. “It doesn’t matter.”
“River—”
Huffing, he let her pull him into a hug and tucked her head under his chin. Conventional wisdom said you shouldn’t be friends with your business manager, but River never held much truck with conventional wisdom, and Amanda was the one exception that never bit him in the ass.
“Are you okay?” she asked quietly.
This had happened before. She didn’t bring it up because she didn’t have to, but she knew he was thinking about it too.
River’s taste in men was pathologically awful.
In any given space, if you wanted to know which guy had the clap and didn’t care who he passed it to, or had a habit of breaking and entering, or (perhaps most traumatizing for River) a mommy kink, all you had to do was set River free in the room and wait until he decided to sleep with someone. He’d find them, no problem.
“It’s just stuff,” he replied. Stuff could be replaced. God knew he had enough money to replace it with.
“Stuff that someone you invited here took out of your home while you were sleeping.”
River winced. “Amanda—”
“Don’t bullshit me, okay? This hurts. I know it does.”
What could he say to that? Of course it hurt. No one liked to be played for a fool. River especially didn’t like that it happened repeatedly, that he didn’t seem to be able to learn from his mistakes. “Yeah, but I do it to myself. I know that.”
“Not on purpose.” She leaned her head against his arm and then looked up into his eyes. “Right? Not on purpose?”
He let out a huge breath. He was a mess, sure, but not that much of a mess. “Not on purpose.”
“Your taste in men is just, like, literally criminal.”
He bit down on a laugh. “Hey.”
When she looked up again, her eyes were twinkling. “Too soon?”
“If I stop being able to laugh at myself, I might as well die.” He sighed dramatically and flopped back onto the bed. At least last-night River had, at some point, put underwear back on, so he hadn’t traumatized Amanda that much this morning.
“Well, don’t die, but maybe get your ass in the shower?” she suggested. “You’re supposed to have a photoshoot in two hours, remember?”
Groaning, he rolled out of bed to do her bidding. A shower would do him good anyway. Maybe he could wash away the stench of his own self-pity.
Of course the necklace he wanted to wear at the photoshoot had been a casualty of what’s-his-name.
River was still grumbling about it when he got into the car with Amanda, fresh from his shower and fed on one of her super smoothie breakfasts.
She clocked his mood and nudged his elbow. “We’re a little ahead of schedule. We can hit that funky pawn shop you like and pick up something new on the way, if you’re quick.”
In his entire forty years of existence, River had never made it out of a pawn shop quickly by anyone’s definition, unless this was back in his juvenile delinquent days when he had to skedaddle before the owners noticed his sticky fingers.
He shot Amanda a suspicious look. “You’re buttering me up for something, aren’t you? ”
She blinked guilelessly. “Would I do that?”
“Absolutely.”
“You might as well enjoy it, then. Come on, let’s go pick out something shiny.”
River had loved secondhand stores since he was a kid, probably the upshot of an austere upbringing in a minimalist cult.
The detritus of other people’s lives fascinated him, but pawn shops were another level.
He’d picked up his first guitar at one in Tulsa, found his favorite pair of earrings in Phoenix.
And Amanda directed the driver to stop outside River’s very favorite store, which had the glitteriest, gaudiest, chunkiest collection of gold and platinum jewelry River’s little magpie heart had ever seen.
“Honey, I’m home!” he crooned as he entered, pushing the door wide. Amanda followed in his wake like a dutiful duckling.
Behind the register, Gary, the shop owner, perked up with a smile. “Well if it isn’t my favorite customer.”
River blew him a kiss. “Got your keys, babydoll? I’m in the mood to sparkle today.”
Gary snapped his fingers. “I have just the thing.”
He always knew what to say to lift River’s spirits. And lighten his wallet, but River didn’t mind.
“Right to the good stuff, please, Gary,” Amanda said. “He’s on a schedule.”
Gary gasped theatrically. “Miss Amanda, are you telling me that the world does not revolve around River Wild?”
“Shhhh,” River hushed him. “Less talking, more shiny things. Chop, chop.”
The jewelry case was jammed full of trinkets, each polished to a perfect eye-searing finish.
River let his fingers wander over the offerings, stopping to feel the heft of the bulky chains or turn gemstones so they caught the light.
He should’ve gotten a manicure before this photoshoot, he reflected.
Playing guitar always chipped his polish.
Oh well. Someone could call in a tech while he was sitting for hair and makeup.
“This is what I had in mind.” Gary pulled a velvet case from beneath the display and opened it. “Saved it just for you.”
The heavy gold chain would sit low on River’s neck.
Five large ruby pendants hung evenly spaced along the flat-woven length.
River could practically feel the decadent weight of it over his collar bones.
He shivered in delight. “You have outdone yourself,” he purred as he pulled his hair to one side. “Amanda, love, do the honors?”
One look in Gary’s little jewelry mirror sealed the deal. River had always looked good in red—something about his sharp cheekbones, elfin chin, and dark eyes lent itself to the color people used for warning signs. It was tremendously convenient for his image.
River handed the necklace to Amanda to repackage and leaned back over the countertop.
“River—”
“Yes, I know, Amanda, but I was so good. I picked something so fast.” He turned his most pleading, pathetic expression on her. “I deserve a reward.”
“You deserve a spanking,” Amanda said sweetly, “but I suspect you’d enjoy it.”
He fluttered his eyelashes.
“Five minutes,” she warned.
“Let’s do rings, then,” River told Gary. “One minute per finger.” Only on his right hand; he didn’t like wearing them on the left. He felt like they got in the way.